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"Technically, I didn't steal it yet, and even if you kick me out I'm a transdimensional magical girl, but a cab ride'd be appreciated. If you're offering." Dallas pursed his lips and leaned against the trunk of the car, sizing Lilliana up.

"Tali, leave the--no, don't take the axe! No, Tali, I clearly just smashed in that ###### window with that axe! Well, no, no don't drop it!" Tali looked at him reproachfully and Dallas groaned and ran his hand through his hair impatiently. "It's evidence now. Your ###### fingerprints are all over it. Great work, now you have to take it. Throw it in the pond or something, I don't care. Terrible criminal. God. You are a ###### criminal."

Kane scratched the back of his head as his big blues followed Aleks slowly. "Sorry about the grass English, guess I didn't think it would be that big of a deal, that one chick slapped me over it. Was just trying to reach you the only way I knew you wouldn't miss."

Christine blinked a few times as if she was confused about something. She cocked her head and looked around now.

"What? What am I doing here? Last thing I remember was Daken stabbing me..." she said. All traces of her normal southern accents were gone, in fact, her voice sounded a bit deeper then usual.

"You okay Christine?"

"I'm not Christine... I'm Matt, what're you talking about?"

IC:

"You're not! I win!" Nicole smiled before turning back to her normal form and letting go of the exasperated Dallas.

IC:

He tore the box open with ferocious curiosity. "What do you think is inside Mr. Lealson? Oh that's right you still can't answer... oh well." what Maverick found inside was not what he expected.

He nibbled on his tooth-pick as he pulled out a single letter.

Dearest Maverick, I am pleased to invite you to the Hellfire Masquerade Gala. The mask that you find within this box is for you to wear to the gala. It was specifically made for you and must be worn because, well face it, it would be rude not to. The gala will take place at the Hellfire Mansion, the instructions to get there along with an address and date of the gala are all down at the bottom. However, if you have any questions or financial needs, call me at the number on my card. My associates and I would be honored to have you as our guest.

Till then,
The Black Queen.
PS. Don't forget the mask inside

"What the ****," Maverick said out-loud as he finished reading the letter. He was almost at a loss for words. How did they find me? Why do they want me to attend? Is it a trap? Financial troubles, do they know who I am?

Maverick sighed and looked back in the box. Indeed there was a mask waiting for him at the bottom. It was sleek black and had a long beak like that of a bird. He shrugged before picking it up and placing it against his face. It was true it fit almost perfectly.

"Now that's just creepy." he said as he turned to Mr. Lealson.

"Here you wear it first, just so I know it isn't poisoned or something." he said before strapping the mask to the man's face, though it didn't seem to fit quite right as it had with Maverick.

"I think that's an improvement." he would have to decide if he'd go to this ball... never mind there is no way he wasn't going, if there was one thing Maverick loved that was a good mystery, next from that was a good trap... which this ball seemed likely to be.

IC:

Jonathan put down the controller after his fourth match in a row. He'd lost the first three but won the last match with a top score. Seems he was a bit rusty. Bored to tears Wolf shut down the 360 before getting to his feet.

"What is there to do around here?" he wondered out loud. He had a sudden idea and quickly left John's room, heading for the basement level, where he knew the Danger Room would be.

"You suck," Dallas wheezed, spooning some chocolate syrup and whipped cream into a spoon and eating it. Catching his breath, he drummed his fingers on the back of Nicole's hand and breathed out heavily to himself. His hair flopped along his forehead effortlessly. "You're exhausting, you know that?"

"Exhausted? Who'se exhausted? I'm so hyped up on Mountain Dew right now! You should really drink some." she shoved her plastic cup towards Dallas slowly.

Suddenly she turned diamond all over again. "I'm a diamond girl, in a diamond world... life's fantastic, mountain dew's the best yeah!" she mock-sang the Barbie girl song which totally was not her ringtone when she was 7.

"I'm a little more of a Pepsi guy," Dal said as evenly as he could.

"I swear it will help keep you awake silly!" she ruffled his dirty blonde hair.

"I can't get much more awake than this."

"That's good, I wouldn't want you sleeping on me. Not when we have so much fun things to do!"

"We're...not going home after this?"

"Oh we could, yeah, but I thought maybe you were too tired, we might have to crash somewhere closer to here, like I don't know... the car, a library maybe, who knows really." she batted her diamond eyelashes.

Dallas' eyebrows tilted and he sat up a little straighter. "Is...the Institute that far away? I didn't think it was that far away. We could make it. Think you...could drive?"

"...It's not that far away, is it? We really gonna have to crash somewhere close?" he glanced at her waiting for her to speak.

"I don't think I could drive... I'm still kinda drunk from earlier Dal..."

"I could buy us a hotel!" she lit up.

"A whole hotel?"

"Well I mean a room... but like I could totes buy the whole thing!"

"Nah...there's a lot of taxes on a whole hotel."

"Oh... well a room, if you don't want to crash anywhere you could try driving us... I mean how did we even get here... I don't remember."

"I already crashed that one car with the cute foxy in it, I feel really bad still."

"Oh. Morrison. I think he's over it. He's a good dude."

"That's good, I haven't been a very good friend to you Dally," she ruffled his hair again. "I feel bad about things I did with my old powers... I was a brat an like really forceful and I'm sorry... I want to be a better person. And you were wrong when you said I wasn't weak. I've always been weak for you."

"You're getting...kinda confessional, Nicole. Sure you're okay?"

"IDK maybe not... maybe I do need to get some sleep..."

"I might get one more sundae to go. Do you wanna go back to the Institute? Hotel? You gonna be okay?"

"I'm fine... just no more Mountain Dew for me. I kinda of want to stay in a hotel, I used to all the time when daddy was on trips. They are kinda comfy to me... and all the hotel people always pampered me you know?"

Dallas shook his head and stood up again, one last time, carrying the stack of trays and trash on one palm. He threw it out while Nicole ordered him a large hot fudge sundae and plucked him a fresh spoon, and then the two mutants walked out into the night. It was starry tonight, but in exchange for the glow of the stars the moon was a bit dim, and the air mildly humid. Dallas quickly began shoveling spoonfuls of hot fudge and vanilla ice cream into his mouth before it melted, and by the time they'd walked to the BMW he'd finished off most of the solid ice cream and was now nursing the mixture of melted vanilla and chocolate like a drink.

Just in time, he remembered that Nicole hadn't thought she was in the shape to drive, and smiled at him a bit unsteadily when he slipped behind the wheel. This is a terrible idea, something told him, but how many times had he driven like this with Alex or John or Ashley? He finished drinking the rest of the ice cream and started the car; when they pulled to a stop in front of the trash can outside he handed the cup to Nicole and watched her do her best King James impersonation. She failed miserably.

"You are literally the perfect example of a basic white girl," he told her, chuckling, while he pulled out into the road and began scanning for somewhere nice to sleep. Now that he looked around at the landmarks and places, he realized how far they really were from Westchester. Twenty minutes to half an hour, at least. Jesus. How far did we go?

"I sneezed on the beat, and the beat got sicka! 'Yonce all on his mouth like liquor, 'Yonce all on his mouth like liquor!" Alaric was in the kitchen, dropping chocolate chips into pancake batter while Lynae conducted important party business. The black haired Black King looked up at the vampire mischievously and began imitating Lynae.

"Hello, you've reached the exclusively private number of the irresistable, cunning, and maneating Black Queen," he drawled, with a smoky British inflection. "What can I do to bless you with my presence this morning, in the name of Queen and country?"

"...Do you want me to leave you? Because what I'm hearing now is that you don't want a date for the gala."

Lynae shot Alaric a glare before pouting a bit, her fangs peeking out from between her lips in an almost comedic fashion.

"Anyway.... Sorry for that. But yes Kristen, we need to go shopping sometime, I'm not sure when but I'll make sure we do. But, I'd recommend you go check some things out before. Well... Have fun and we'll be in touch dear." With that, Lynae hung up and proceeded to glare at Alaric once more.

"Oh, come on, it's not like you were talking to some foreign minister. It was the Teenage Lizard Queen asking for a shopping date. Hardly the central cog for your Hellions initiative." Alaric's irreverent smile was reflected in his dark eyes, and made them look nearly violet in the light of the kitchen. He lifted a pan off the burner and wafted it around, letting the smell of chocolate flapjacks waft around the air. "She probably didn't even notice anything was wrong."

Lynae rolled her eyes a bit, pushing past Ric as left and headed toward her study. She wasn't in the mood for this. Maybe it was because she hadn't fed in a while, but for some reason the vampire was a bit testy.

"They're not rebuttals, Brook, they're facts. Now come on out of the clothing jungle, it's time to rejoin the civilized world." Rebekah said patiently, leaning against the wall, shirt still folded over one arm as she stared at the racks around her. Could she track Brooklyn down if she wanted to? Yes. Did she want to? No. Far too much work, and she'd come out on her own eventually.

"Come on now."

IC:

John's approach to the Danger Room was hindered when he found that the door to the lower levels of the Institute was locked, and securely at that. No passcode would allow it to open, each one rejected with a sharp mechanical denial. This process went on for a few minutes before, ultimately, the door resignedly slid open, allowing access to the long-disused rooms beneath. Or rather, supposedly long disused. Unbeknownst to the former Ultimate, they had not only been occupied recently, they currently were occupied.

Finally, resignedly, Brooklyn pounced from a pair of racks behind Rebekah and listlessly pulled a sleeveless black top over her head. Bekah wiggled her arms trying to pull it off, but Brooklyn had already slipped around to judge how it looked on her with her Sherlock Scan.

"What do you think?" she asked her girlfriend, although it was immediately clear she had a few thoughts of her own.

"I think it's not supposed to be worn over other clothes." Rebekah remarked dryly, glancing down at herself. The top didn't look bad, she had to admit, but it was most certainly not supposed to be over her other clothes. Having resigned herself to her fate, she ceased struggling and pivoted to face her girlfriend, crossing her arms.

The process was as follows; nonplussed incomprehension, a wince, an inaudible sigh, and a look of resignation. Though she'd sooner drop dead than admit it, the last was accompanied by a tinge of excitement. Though she pretended to hate shopping, and it was far from all pretend, but she did enjoy some of it. The acquisition of new items was nice, and in the case of clothes, she tended to like them. She just didn't always enjoy, or understand, the process for their acquisition.

"Yeah but most basic white girls can't turn into diamond," she stuck her tongue out before shifting back to her normal form finally.

"See any hotels around? I told you were far from the school."

IC:

A frustrated Johnathan had just been about to give up completely when finally the door slid open. He blinked for a few seconds. "Either someone's letting me in or I finally got a good guess." he shrugged before stepping through the door and started down the stares towards the lower levels. He smelled dust as he walked down the steps, it seemed these levels hadn't been used much in a long time.

Once he came down to the basement level he glanced around at the silver hallway. He knew Cerebro was down here, the War Room and the Danger Room. He headed for the Danger Room slowly.

"... I'm going to hold you to that. If this ends up like the R2-D2 incident, I'm going to bolt."

IC:

"I'd be wary." A voice sounded from somewhere near John, rather familiar in nature. It was quiet, almost bored, but it was difficult to place where it was coming from; the hallways echoed too much, the sound was distorted. "It hasn't been used much in a while. And I've been tweaking the designs, hardware and software."

Now the source was clear; a room connected to the War Room, not far from the main hallways. "Not that this would necessarily be identical to what you are used to anyway. Different universe of origin."

"You're the hotel guru," Dallas grumbled, rubbing at his eyes to try and keep them open. His gaze kept flicking to the speedometer to make sure he wasn't speeding (too much) without intending to. "I was hoping you'd see one."

"That's patently false. Artoo had Luke's lightsaber in Jedi, and in the prequels he had a little Taser. He's a deadly little dude."

IC:

"You know, there I was, in a nice bath with some scented candles and a clear head. Very lovely. And then you come in and start nagging me about leaving the house," Betsy Braddock said. "Turns out I must have had water in my ears, because I heard 'Let's go on a vacation, Betsy' and not 'Hey Betsy, let's have an X-Force lakeside retreat.'"

Warren made the universal 'talking too much' sign with his right hand and tossed another AR-15 into the landfill's worth of guns and ammunition before closing the Sting Ray's trunk. Psylocke leaned over the car - which he wasn't about to complain about - and made to say something else snarky before she looked down in the thin space behind the two seats and saw her katana, Shurayuki, polished and sharpened enough to shave with. Her eyes went wide, and before long she was settled into shotgun without complaint.

"Are we already in Nebraska or is New York more boring than I remember?" she finally asked.

"This is called a highway, Betsy," Warren explained patiently. "People drive on them when they want to go places. Confusing, right? Guess that's what happens when you force your boyfriend to bring you all your meals in bed for a year."